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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366351">Sweet Dreams</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deleaf/pseuds/Deleaf'>Deleaf</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamscapes, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Hope, Male Friendship, No spoilers for TOA, One Shot, Post-The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), Post-The Heroes of Olympus, post-BoO</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:22:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366351</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deleaf/pseuds/Deleaf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Gaea, Percy dreams of Tartarus.  That is until a friend pops by to teach him about dreams and the nature of beach balls.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nico di Angelo &amp; Percy Jackson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sweet Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>For the record, I hadn’t wanted to dream of </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai</span>
  </em>
  <span> the whole night.  I certainly hadn’t intended to get my friend involved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a typical night in the Poseidon cabin.  The fountain trinkled peacefully. The walls were gleaming.  My dirty laundry was strewn across the floor haphazardly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was about a week and a half after Gaea’s defeat and I could tell I was about to have a particularly bad nightmare the evening before, but I was exhausted from an evening of sword practise and working with the naiads who were keen on more representation.  As a son of the sea god I felt it necessary to aid them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So when I collapsed on my bunk that night, I had no choice but to let my eyes float shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, when I opened them in my dreams, all I saw was Tartarus.  I was reliving my memories from the abyss. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai</span>
  </em>
  <span> picked bets.  Bob looked lost.  Annabeth was hurting.  Each time a memory like this came about it was never perfect.  The more I panicked, the worse things got. One time instead of falling down to Tartarus with regular Annabeth with me, I watched her rot in my arms as we fell forever.  This time the spirits clung onto recent memories.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And this is for the giants killed</span>
  </em>
  <span>, one sneered.  They were much more vindictive in my dreams.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And this is for Leo.  He died because you couldn’t stop him</span>
  </em>
  <span>.  Unlike real life, it wasn’t just the curses people gave that hurt.  It was all the curses some part of me thought I deserved. Or I thought they would give.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ah yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>, one sneered, </span>
  <em>
    <span>The curse of drowning, from beloved Octavian</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Silena Beauregard</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Medusa</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Charles Beckendorf</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Annabeth Chase--ah, for making her fear you when Misery came to visit</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>I crumpled at that one.  I learned long ago that nothing was sacred in one’s dreams.  No leaf could be left unmoved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I watched as the </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai</span>
  </em>
  <span> swarmed above me. I was flat on my back now, trying to avoid them.  They entered my esophagus like a fist. They curled into my ears and wisped into my eyeballs so all I could see was grey mist.  Here they curled completely around me. There were many of them yet...they were one single entity. This must be what it’s like to drown,  I thought dimly. I could swear the mist was in my skull, entering my brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, it stopped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first I thought I had woken up, but soon realized I was in an empty black void.  There was no real sense of space here. There was just blackness--everywhere.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I heard a cough behind me and was surprised that I could turn around.  I seemed to move more by willpower than moving my feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There, standing ten feet away from me was Nico di Angelo.  He was dresseed like he just rolled out of bed--with a crinkled oversized black T-shirt and skull pajama pants.  He raised his eyebrows at me for a moment. “Sorry ‘bout this,” he said. “You were dreaming rather powerfully and I got pulled over.  I got you out when things started looking bad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I briefly wondered why ‘looking bad’ was only thought of as the last part of my dream, but decided not to argue.  Instead I asked the more obvious question. “What’s going on? Am I still dreaming? Can you control dreams? That’s a little unfair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raised an eyebrow at me.  “Based on what those </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai</span>
  </em>
  <span> were saying, you can control all liquids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I winced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, sorry...I didn’t mean to--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” I interrupted.  The black void filled me with a surprising amount of inspiration for a conversation change.  “Where are we? How am I standing?” My feet seemed to dangle above an inky black. When I flexed my foot downward, it moved as easily as if there were no surface to be stood on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which, I suppose, there wasn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My head,” Nico answered, clearly as relieved with the change in conversation as I was.  “Well, an environment I created inside my dream.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I looked around again.  “It’s kinda plain. Is this what it’s always like in here?”  No wonder the guy was always so grumpy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nico had the nerve to roll his eyes.  “No. But I was in a rush. You were being...</span>
  <em>
    <span>loud</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, what can you do in here?”  Perhaps it was pushy but I was curious and when your brain is as hyperactive as mine, sometimes it’s hard to control yourself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nico didn’t seem offended though.  He held out a hand and a moment later a beachball--the sort we have at Camp Half-Blood--appeared there.  It seemed to fade in and out of focus depending on how much I concentrated. So did Nico, I realized.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cool!”  After a moment of hesitation, I grabbed it from his hands.  It was just as I remembered. Except the sticker which had unintelligible scrawl.  I assumed this was because neither myself nor the son of Hades knew exactly what was written there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nico smiled at my enthusiasm and took it as an invitation to show off his lucid dreaming abilities.  The void fell away into Camp Half-Blood’s campfire and surrounding arena where Nico proceeded to sit and stare at the flames.  I thought that could only be so exciting given that he was the one creating them. I frowned at that thought. Was there any chance that </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>could create something here?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I placed the ball on the grass and concentrated on my hand.  I attempted to make a beach ball appear. Nothing did. I supposed that made sense.  If I couldn’t lucid dream in my own head, why would I be able to in Nico’s?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I sighed, it did make me feel a little powerless though.  I almost asked the son of Hades to send me back, but I’d only just arrived...and I was worried that I’d have another nightmare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Feeling slighted, I sat beside Nico.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glanced up at me, bemused.  “It’ll come to you,” he said as if he read my thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I was startled.  “How did you--?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not much else to do here.  Have you seen the view?” He gestured around and I noticed that just beyond the trees there was the same inky dark as before.  I shivered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> be able to do that?  Even here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep. Think about it: you wouldn’t be able to walk around or talk if you didn’t have </span>
  <em>
    <span>some</span>
  </em>
  <span> control” He glanced back up at me.  “But you probably want to go back--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!”  an image of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai </span>
  </em>
  <span> popped back into my head.  “...Not yet, I mean. If that’s alright?”  I </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>hoped that was alright.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just shrugged.  “I don’t really care,” he paused.  “But I do need to practice.” He jumped up and walked over to some open grass.  He waved his hand as if he were erasing a whiteboard. He rocked back and forth for a second and suddenly a pink elephant appeared...or an 3-D image of a pink elephant, anyway.  It was about the size of my torso and floated a foot in front of Nico’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I couldn’t help the laugh that spilled out of me.  I found myself standing beside the son of Hades on the grass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s so cool!” I said.  “What else can you do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The son of Hades grinned at me, an expression I was slowly getting used to seeing on his face.  “Do you have any suggestions?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Give him a hat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did.  A cartoonishly large top hat now rested on the elephant’s head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I grinned and exchanged mischievous looks with the Italian.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A pair of shoes?” he suggested.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Better make it two.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A skateboard?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Make it blue!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want a moustache?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know I do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To my surprise he did not put said moustache on the elephant, but rather my face.  My hand flew up to my nose where something bristly lay. “Hey!” I complained, but the son of Hades was doubled over laughing.  I assumed this was because the moustache was curled up on either end like a cartoon French person.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t fair!” I protested.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Isn’t it?  My head, my rules.”  Di Angelo looked smug, but I hardly complain when he was being this kind all night.  Speaking of which…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>My smile disappeared.  “Could you check on someone for me?  Annabeth sometimes gets nightmares, an if hers are bad…” my voice trailed off into the inky void.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grimaced.  “I can try, but if she’s having one… I’m not sure if I have the strength to bring you both here.  I might have to send you back.” He looked apologetic and I suddenly realised that the business about the pink elephant may have been more for </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> benefit than his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s fine.”  I said without hesitation.  “I just need to know she’s okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe…” he paused, “I might be able to teach you to protect yourself, sometime.  Not as well as me, but…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I smiled.  “Sounds good.  Thank you, Nico.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded and closed his eyes.  After a moment, Annabeth flickered into appearance.  </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>She wore ratty pajamas and a frantic expression.  I had just enough time to smile at her before the entire environment flickered out and I found myself back with the </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai </span>
  </em>
  <span>were just as vicious as before.   They nipped at my clothing and curled between my toes.  I turned my face to the side, more out of instinct than purpose.  And there, on a mound an arms length away...was a beach ball. I grabbed it and swung it at the monsters.  In a moment of clarity, I nicked it on one side with Riptide, which appeared back in my pocket, and spewed air at the </span>
  <em>
    <span>arai</span>
  </em>
  <span>.   In the way that dreams work, this tiny burst was enough to send them all spiraling, as if a huge gust of wind had hit the beasts instead of the little air from inside the ball.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I grinned.  I could get used to this.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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